IU Northwest News

Associate professor and prairie champion Spencer Cortwright recaps a successful season of growth

Wednesday Dec 05, 2018

The Shirley Heinze Land Trust recently praised IU Northwest for incorporating native vegetation into its landscape. Pictured at the recognition luncheon from left are: Tim Griffin and Laura Henderson of Friends of Shirley Heinze; Mark Hoyert, IU Northwest Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Myrna Newgent of Friends of Shirley Heinze; and Dana Cortwright, representing IU Northwest.

Shirley Heinze Land Trust, a Northwest Indiana organization dedicated to preserving and protecting natural land, has recognized Indiana University Northwest for its work in restoring the Little Calumet River Prairie and Wetlands Nature Preserve, once a wild expanse of invasive weeds bordering the campus.

At a recent luncheon, the trust bestowed awards to organizations and individuals through its Bringing Nature Home program, which recognizes efforts to cultivate native vegetation and provide a source of shelter and food for local wildlife.

IU Northwest’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Mark Hoyert accepted the award, along with Dana Cortwright, the wife of the prairie’s caretaker, associate professor of biology Spencer Cortwright. Praxair Burns Harbor was the other organizational recipient of the award. The organization also recognized six individuals for incorporating native plants in their landscaping projects and gardens.

The 11 acres that neighbor the IU Northwest main parking lot to the north is perhaps better known on campus as “Spencer’s Prairie,” which Cortwright has taken care of for the past 16 years.

In the midst of a robust year of growth, Cortwright submitted the prairie for award consideration and the Shirley Heinze board heartily agreed, thus bringing public recognition to what Northwest Indiana environmentalists have known for years.

IU Northwest’s Biology Department Chair Peter Avis described the prairie and Cortwright’s work as “the epitome of restoration.”

“Spencer’s work has created an intensely biodiverse ecosystem that is beneficial to all – the citizens of Gary and beyond, the students, faculty and staff of IU Northwest and essentially the rest of coastal Indiana,” Avis said. “Spencer’s tireless effort to restore not only this property but to teach and engage about his work and that of others deserves great praise and all the support we can provide.”

A prairie is born

It all started in the late 1990s, when Cortwright noticed workers building a levee to control flooding on the adjacent land that is now the award-winning prairie.

“When I looked at the position of the levee and the land around it, I said to myself, ‘No one is going to be able to do anything with the land near that levee. There’s not enough of it there; it’s damp in some areas and you are not supposed to build near a levee because it is there for flood protection,’ ” he said.

Photo by Ben Meraz

Still, he saw potential in the land, then dominated by unwelcome European weeds, and so Cortwright set out to become its caretaker. When he learned that the Gary Parks Department owned the land, he sought permission to re-vegetate parts of it.

Over the years, Cortwright has enlisted the help of many IU Northwest students who have performed restoration work on the preserve, which now contains approximately 200 native plant species, of which only two were present when the project started.

Recapping the 2018 season, Cortwright outlined a few important points in a report he calls “Nature Notes,” including:

Upper level biology students performed a prescribed burn in the spring. They burned about a third of the preserve in order to enable plants to grow more robustly. Burning removes the thatch and allows sunlight to warm the soil faster, thus promoting growth. Another benefit to prescribed burns is to kill off invasive Eurasian weeds early in their growth cycle.

Sandhill cranes returned to breed in 2018 after a year hiatus.

Many plants were replanted at higher ground in anticipation of an upcoming bridge and road project.

The restored wetlands have made for better conditions for frogs and toads, which are now growing in numbers.

Butterfly populations in the prairie have benefitted and diversified thanks to a wider variety of native plants.

Students have helped Cortwright ramp up efforts to diversify the wetland area with more varieties of native plants, including the swamp rose plant, which is uncommon in Indiana.

Students learned how to collect and prepare seeds to be spread in areas that have not yet been seeded.